Noticing
by bwayfan25
Summary: Boq has never given Nessa much thought as Galinda has always been there to distract him, but when he accidentally hurts Nessa's feelings, he finds there is much more to her than meets the eye. Slightly Bessa.


**This is a bit of an odd premise, but I like it, so I'm writing it. It comes from my belief that Nessa is misunderstood, and is strong in different ways than are shown in the book or musical. Also, I think this is my third story in which I make Boq feel bad about how he treats Nessa. I guess it serves him right. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Wicked. I wish I did, but I don't. There is one cuss words, but nothing too bad.**

The windows of the Shiz University Library were black, with white flecks swirling outside of it, a few hitting the window pane.

Boq glanced at his watch.

8 o'clock. They had been studying for six hours straight.

"Nessa?" Boq whispered.

Nessa's eyes rose from For The Love of Oz: The Untold Two Sides of the Munchkinland Invasion. As she sat back, her hands feel away from her temples. Boq noticed they had been rubbing her head when she began reading The Beginner's Guide to Chemistry, and had not stopped since.

"Yes?" she whispered in reply.

"I think I'm going to go back to my room. It is getting late."

He really just wanted to go out and do something, as it was Friday night after all. As the weather had gotten colder, spending time with Nessa involved more and more study 'dates' in the library. Though he appreciated the improvement in his grades, he wished they would go out and do something interesting.

"Alright," Nessa replied.

"Are you okay here? Do you want me to escort you back to your room?" Boq asked, gathering his books and shoving them in his bag.

Nessa looked as if she was going to say no, but her shoulders dropped and she heaved a sigh.

"If it isn't any bother, that would be wonderful."

Boq had been hoping to escort her only as far as the front door, but found himself yearning for warmth. Within Madame Morrible's quarters, a lovely fire burned in the grate. After a few minutes thaw, Boq gave Nessa a small nod, and exited.

He was only a few steps out the door though when he remembered something.

_I need her notes for chapter six before Monday_.

Cautiously, he opened the door, thinking that Nessa's arrival would have made the Head come out of her room, but it did not. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen. Boq took this as an opportunity to go back to Nessa's room.

Nessa lived down the hallway and through a doorway to an almost completely separate apartment. It took Boq several minutes to get to her door, as Mme. Morrible seemed to like to cover lamps with very dark shades that seemed to be against the entire point of a lamp.

When he finally arrived at Nessa's door, he knocked softly.

"It's open."

Boq opened the door slowly. Nessa smiled as she saw him. She was sitting on her bed, legs de-braced and outstretched over her deep blue quilt.

"I'm sorry, but I wanted to know if I could borrow your notes over chapter six. I can get them back to you tomorrow."

Nessa gave a nod, and attempted to lean over to her chair, which was parked in front of her desk. Like before, she gave a sigh. She pointed the bag out to Boq, who walked across the room to get to it.

When he found what he was looking for, he gave a small gasp. His line of sight was to Nessa's bare legs, which he had never seen before. They were always hidden under blankets, skirts, or knee socks. Or, thinking back to the OzDust and events transpiring since, he had simply not cared enough to look.

Nessa looked around in concern until she found what he was looking at.

"I'm sorry.I didn't think about... I know, they are... I'm so sorry," Nessa stammered as she struggled to pull her quilt over top of them. Tears were welling in her eyes.

"No, Nessa, I am sorry. I don't know what made me... I mean, I'm very sorry," Boq apologized. Like so many other times in which Nessa was concerned, he felt awful.

But he didn't know what to do now. He was standing facing her on the bed. Nessa continued to apologize, the tears now freely flowing down her cheeks.

_You're a jerk_ a voice inside his head whispered. _You pretend to like her, which is bad enough, and now you've gone and made her cry. She's embarrassed of her legs, dumbass. Why else would she go to great lengths to hide them? And now you've gone and made it worse. Way to go._

This time Boq heaved a sigh. He knelt down next to Nessa and, taking her hands in his. No matter how hard he looked though, she refuse to make eye contact with them.

"Nessarose Thropp. I am terribly sorry. I was taken aback. You are a wonderful, beautiful girl. I don't care about what your legs look like," Boq whispered.

Nessa continued to refuse eye contact. Boq sat down next to her on the bed. With a great internal effort not to show emotion, he pulled back the blanket.

Upon further viewing, her legs did not look as bad as he had initially thought. Yes, they were turned inwards, but it was the marking that concerned him.

Up and down her legs were white lines, some crossed with smaller lines. Then it struck him. They were scars from sutures. Some were very faded, others so new they were almost pink. And there were red lines that lay over some of the white lines, thick towards her knee, thin as they ran down both sides of her calves. Welts, in the exact shape of her braces.

Boq looked up. Nessa was watching him, seemingly waiting for him to jump up and run. Instead, he ran a gentle finger over the welts. She didn't flinch.

"Nessa, what happened?" Boq asked, with genuine concern. He would later look back and realize that was most likely the first time he had felt any true, deep concern for her well being.

"Well, my father loves me, but...but he doesn't love my legs. Ever since I was a baby, he has insisted in new surgeries and different things. It seems strange, but I am so used to it now that I barely even notice. Same with the welts. When I first started wearing the braces when I was four, the pain was awful and I cried about it almost every day. Now, I don't feel it."

Boq looked at her for a long time. This girl, who he had always believed to been nothing more than needy and weak, able to take on numerous surgeries without a second glance? And welts so deep they seemed to be more like grooves cut into her skin with a blade?

"I'm so sorry, Nessa. I'm sorry I gasped, and that it hurt you so much. I didn't mean to," Boq said, and for once, he was being completely honest.

"I'm just sorry that nothing has ever worked. Though I would love it to work for my sake, I want it even more for my father. Every time one fails, the look on his face. It's, it's just unbearable."

Boq forgot about his previous wishes to be apart from Nessa. He ended up staying for hours, tracing the scars on her legs (with her permission), and listening intently to the story each one told. She showed him how she could twist them in peculiar yet fascinating ways, which more than once made Boq slightly uncomfortable to his stomach. By the end of the night, her previous embarrassment had left, and she had begun to laugh at her own self-deprecating jokes.

Eventually, Boq looked at his watch. It now read 11 o'clock. He mentioned this to Nessa, who looked concerned and helped the best she could to gather up his things.

He bade her goodnight, but a thought struck him as his hadn grasped the door handle.

"Nessa," he said, turning his head to face her. "Why are they like that in the first place?"

"Milkflowers. My father didn't want another green child after Elphaba, so he made our mother chew milkflowers. Well, he got his wish. I do not have green skin. But, the consequences were far worse than another green daughter. My mother died within an hour of giving birth to me, and I was born two and a half months premature. I can only thank the Unnamed God that my legs were the only thing that suffered because of it. My father blames Elphaba, and I understand his rationale, but I don't agree with it. Elphaba did not make a choice to be green. It just happened. I don't blame her for it. At least, I don't consciously blame her for it. Perhaps I do, deep within my subconscious, but as far as I know, I do not. he is my sister who has always cared for me no matter what, and I love her."

Boq nodded, and left. As he walked down the main road to the boys dormitory, he pondered Nessa. He had never given her much thought, what with Galinda always around to distract him. Now he saw Nessa in a whole different light. Maybe there could even be...


End file.
